umm... pure 70s was relesed in 1999....and the boxed set flashback was relesed in 2000....

how can a tape (im assuming a much more heavy duty tape than home cassets/VHS tape) degrade that much over the corce of one year?

could it just have been mixed badly and not the master tape that has degraded?

i dont see how tapes can degrade that badly...we have cassett tapes that are 30 YO and sound perfect when played (exsept for the normal HISSSSS that comes with all analog low bias tapes)and VHS tapes that are going on 20yo and seem to look just as good as when they were new.

you would think that the thicker wider tapes used by bands such as ELO would be verry durable...i think they did have metal partical and maybe even digital master tapes in the 70s....but not shur...
hmmm... :/